Two major telecommunication networks have evolved worldwide. The first is a network of telephone systems in the form of the Public Switched Telephone System (PSTN). This network was initially designed to carry voice communication, but later also adapted to transport data. The second is a network of computer systems in the form of the Internet. The Internet has been designed to carry data but also increasingly being used to transport voice and multimedia information. Computers implementing telephony applications have been integrated into both of these telecommunication networks to provide enhanced communication services. For example on the PSTN, computer telephony integration has provided more functions and control to the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Services). On the Internet, computers are themselves terminal equipment for voice communication as well as serving as intelligent routers and controllers for a host of terminal equipment.
The Internet is a worldwide network of IP networks communicating under TCP/IP. Specifically, voice and other multimedia information are transported on the Internet under the VoIP (Voice-over-IP) protocol, and under the H.323 standard that has been put forward for interoperability. Another important implementation of VOIP protocol is SIP (“Session Initiation Protocol”.)
The integration of the PSTN and the IP networks allows for greater facility in automation of voice applications by leveraging the inherent routing flexibility and computing accessibility in the IP networks.
Interactive Voice Response (“IVR”) is a technology that automates interaction with telephone callers. Enterprises are increasingly turning to IVR to reduce the cost of common sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls to and from their company.
Historically, IVR solutions have used pre-recorded voice prompts and menus to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses. Modern IVR solutions also enable input and responses to be gathered via spoken words with voice recognition.
IVR solutions enable users to retrieve information including bank balances, flight schedules, product details, order status, movie show times, and more from any telephone. Additionally, IVR solutions are increasingly used to place outbound calls to deliver or gather information for appointments, past due bills, and other time critical events and activities.
One issue that arises from an IVR making an outbound call is to determine the type of receiver who might pick up the call. For example, the receiver may be human or a voice mailbox or an answering machine. Each type of receiver may require a different type of interactive exchange.
This type of issue is commonly tackled by the implementation of call progress analysis (“CPA”). For example, a call progress analysis module initially analyzes the media stream of the call to determine the nature of the receiver. The analysis is performed by analyzing a number of attributes such as the absence or presence of certain analog tones, and their duration and cadence and also the stage the call is in. In this case, an answering machine at the receiving end may be identified by its signature beep before it started recording.
However, even if a conventional CPA is able to distinguish between the different types of receivers, there are still timing issues associated with human interface. Usually it takes some time to identify an answering machine by its signature beep. The machine will play a series of identifying messages and voice prompts before signifying with a beep to being recording a voice message. If the receiver is human, the wait for the IVR to identify a possible beep may be too long. The human receiver will become impatient or think there is something wrong with the connection and hang up the line. On the other hand, if the receiver is inaccurately identified as human so that the IVR interacts promptly, it will be a problem later when the receiver actually turns out to be an answering message machine. In this case, the IVR application may have already played a portion or even the entire message by the time the answering machine is ready to record it.
There is a need to improve the interaction with the recipient of an IVR call.